The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,51
through crisp and clear. “Parker, hon. How goes it?”
He says, “I’ve had better days. And if the Buddhists are to be believed, I’ve had better lives. What do you need, Amanda?”
“Your boy has been very naughty,” she says in her familiar voice.
He shoots back, “And so has your girl.”
She chuckles. “Let’s get together and talk it over.”
“Yes,” he says with no reluctance. “Let’s.”
Thirty-three minutes and two Diamond taxicab rides later, Parker arrives in a tiny alleyway off M Street Northwest in Georgetown, west of the White House. This high-priced part of Georgetown is old brick-and-cobblestone streets, but the thick wooden door he approaches is bland. After punching a code into a keypad, the lock clicks open and he enters the Button Gwinnett Club.
The place is old, worn down, and the food and drink are comparable to the output of a kitchen at a soon-to-be-closed Holiday Inn in West Virginia. But with its initiation fee of $100,000, plus a penalty of ten times that much if the club’s solitary rule is ever broken, the Button Gwinnett Club is exclusive. Parker goes through the motions as he goes down the wood-paneled hallway. With a small key, he unlocks a small numbered wooden locker in which he deposits his iPhone, watch, and wallet.
An old man, wearing a knee-length starched white apron, black trousers, and white shirt with black necktie, nods and says, “Sir … I believe your guest is in Room Three.”
“Thank you,” he says, and takes a turn past one door toward another marked with a brass numeral 3, and walks in.
Amanda Price is sitting at a small round table with a white tablecloth, sipping a martini, and he sits across from her. The room is private. All of the rooms in the Button Gwinnett are private, and with cell phones and all electronic devices forbidden in the dining areas, the club offers something that is rare in the District of Columbia: a place where the power brokers can sit and have open and fruitful discussions without any chance of being overheard or having their presence noted by the media, for that’s the solitary rule of the Button Gwinnett Club.
Pure privacy.
The door silently opens, and a waiter delivers his drink— tumbler of Jameson Irish whiskey and an ice water chaser.
Amanda says, “Really, Parker, what was your boy thinking, going out like that? I thought he was smart enough to avoid what the little man tells him to do.”
He takes a bracing sip. “Amanda, if you want to talk, talk. If you want to make jokes and snarky comments, I can go back to work and pick any random cable news channel to deliver what you’re offering.”
Amanda smiles with the face of one who knows a secret. “How’s Grace handling this?”
“As well as can be expected.”
“And where is she?”
“In seclusion. Look, Amanda—”
“How goes the search for her?”
The Jameson is threatening to crawl back up his gullet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Amanda says, “Nice try, but don’t treat me like an idiot. I know she bailed out on her detail yesterday, and I know there’s a search going on for her. As low-key and quiet as possible, but there’s a search going on.”
Parker needs a moment to think so he takes another sip of Jameson. It tastes bland and warm.
He says, “What do you want?”
A sharp-toothed smile. “That’s better. What I want is … to see what common ground we might share. In return for not passing on what I know to my friends in the media. It’s always practical to make deposits in the favor bank, especially a deposit as big as this one.”
The room is quiet, the doors and walls are thick, and the reclusive management of the Button Gwinnett Club promises hourly electronic sweeps of the premises to ensure there’s no eavesdropping equipment, but Parker hesitates.
Amanda says, “Please. If this were to get out—highly unlikely—we’ll both hang together, won’t we?”
He says, “What kind of common ground?”
Her red-polished fingernail traces the top of her glass. “Let’s just say that you and I could agree that having a First Lady that remains missing, or turns up deceased, would be a very good thing for certain parties.”
“Go on.”
“Hypothetically speaking …”
“Of course.”
“There are certain insurance corporations and pharmaceutical firms that have been severely damaged and compromised by that woman’s endless campaign to do good. They’re not looking forward to another four years of being on the other end of her constant criticism.”
Parker takes another sip of his Irish whiskey. “They may get their